


Just Be Close at Hand

by Ray_Writes



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Love Confessions, Mutual Pining, Post-Episode: s04e17 Beacon of Hope, Pre-Relationship, Sad Ending, metahuman OC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 22:15:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18214349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/pseuds/Ray_Writes
Summary: Some months after Oliver's broken engagement, Laurel is forced to reveal something long kept secret.





	Just Be Close at Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everybody. This fic came about as an experiment as to what might of happened had Laurel's love confession not come minutes before her death. So this is in a universe where Darhk never managed to get his idol back/break out of prison and all the dumb stuff didn't happen. I tried to make things as realistic as possible in regards to how characters might react or feel, so I hope people still enjoy. Thanks for reading!

Laurel looked up as her door opened, and a smile spread over her face. “Mayor Queen. Here for business?”

“Not exactly. You catch the time?”

She looked at the bottom of her computer screen as he walked in and took the seat on the other side of her desk.

“Afraid not.”

“Thought so. Well, lucky for you, I make enough for two.” Oliver placed two tupperware containers on her desk and cracked his open. “Take a half hour for lunch with me, ADA Lance?”

Laurel pulled her own container closer and took the lid off. Apparently Ollie was in a soup mood; this was the second one of the week, and it smelled just as divine. “You’re spoiling me, you know that?”

“Someone has to make sure you eat. Can’t count on Thea for that, unfortunately.”

“We do order a lot of takeout when left to our own devices,” Laurel freely admitted. “She get any of this?”

“She’s at a lunch meeting. So that’s the both of you taken care of,” Oliver answered. He started to dig into his food and Laurel followed suit.

They’d fallen into this habit after he was sworn in. Either he’d swing by with something homemade or Laurel would knock on his office door to invite him out. It was a nice way to unwind outside of their busy schedules, and it made Oliver feel better about the lack of promotion he’d been able to give her. 

Laurel and her father had both had to talk him out of appointing her DA considering how that would look to an ethics committee. It was no secret she and Oliver were friends and that she’d openly supported his campaign, after all. So a part of these frequent meetups were an attempt at an apology, she had to guess.

The other part likely was that he was simply lonely. Felicity was still maintaining their separation and had even expressed interest in trying out the dating scene again the last time Laurel had spoken to her when they’d met up for coffee. 

“I’m kind of glad things crashed and burned with Oliver before we tied the knot, cause that would have been a nightmare to untangle,” the other woman had told her. She’d raised her cup as if it were a wine glass. “So here’s to us, the lucky ones who realized the error of our ways.”

“Right,” Laurel had agreed without meeting Felicity’s eyes, and then had gulped down a large portion of her latte.

As the mayor, Oliver was fortunately no longer stuck living in the base, but she had no doubt his new residence felt empty with no one to share it with. Thea stayed late there sometimes, but she’d seemingly decided Laurel’s apartment was home even when her brother was no longer living in the loft where she’d been attacked.

It was nice to have him around City Hall, at least. They talked about the various initiatives and programs he wanted to promote, and Laurel talked about the reforms their justice system could really use. She had a partner in improving the city both in and out of the field.

“You know, Daggett sent his people to try and see me again? Never mind one of my campaign promises was to stop letting corporate lobbyists have a controlling interest in local government,” Oliver said. “Makes me wonder why I stopped targeting billionaires.”

“Ollie!” She hissed.

He motioned back to her closed door. “I’m not admitting to anything.” Oliver turned back to her. “Anyway, you’re a lawyer. Confidentiality.”

She had to fight hard against a smile. “Well, we might want to hold off on Daggett for at least a few weeks. The timing would be suspicious.”

“If you say so. I’m thinking maybe we sneak in, grab some files of questionable content, and drop them on a certain ADA’s desk. Classic move, works every time.”

“A certain ADA, huh?”

“I know just the one.”

She couldn’t stop a small giggle that time, and Oliver’s face lit up with a smile. These lunch dates were one of the highlights of her day, and part of her wondered if they were for him as well — but of course, they weren’t dates.

It was wrong of her. So wrong. Oliver was looking to her as a friend while he went through the process of a relationship ending, and here she was fantasizing.

It wasn’t as if she’d wanted them to break up. Oliver and Felicity were both her friends, and she’d been happy for them. The best thing would be for the two of them to settle things; that’s what everyone else wanted. No one else was ever happy when she and Oliver were together. It was just a hopeless dream long past, and she only had herself to blame for being unable to move on.

“Laurel?”

She blinked.

“You okay?” Oliver asked.

“Um, yeah. Just thinking about a case,” she lied.

“Save it for after lunch,” he recommended. “You can’t always be working.”

“I can try,” she replied, only half-joking. But she returned her attentions to her soup.

His phone buzzed, and Oliver’s brow creased as he took it out and skimmed the message.

“What’s wrong?”

“Barry. He says he’s got a head’s up for the team. How quick do you think you can finish up here?”

“Probably about as quickly as you.” Laurel started clearing the remains of lunch off her desk. “You should get back to your office.”

“Right.” Oliver stood and gathered his things, but instead of leaving he caught himself with one hand on the door frame. “You know, here I am the mayor, and you’re still bossing me around.”

“Well, the mayor is a public servant,” Laurel reasoned. “And seeing as I am a constituent, that does make me one of your many bosses.”

“Uh-huh,” Oliver replied, though he was grinning as he added, “I’ll see you later.”

“See you.”

He left and Laurel dropped back into her seat, one hand combing through her hair as she let out a sigh. She really needed to give this up.

—-

“There’s a metahuman named Evan Piers that Cisco found on CCTV boarding a high-speed train to Star City this morning.”

Barry wasn’t in the base; they had him and the STAR Labs team on speaker just as they had them on speaker back in Central.

“He can project some kind of field that compels people to tell the truth.” 

“We think he must be able to affect the frontal lobe, which is what usually suppresses the truth when people lie or keep secrets,” Caitlin elaborated.

“Yeah, so we’re calling him Lie Detector, okay?” Cisco told them.

“So how does this make him so effective?” John asked.

“Any time the police attempted to arrest him, they ended up getting into altercations with each other instead,” Barry replied. “Which allowed him to get away with the thefts. Plus he’s armed himself with guns and ammo.”

“He hit up Central while we were busy with another Weather Wizard blizzard,” Cisco added. “And we’ve still got Trickster junior to catch, or we’d just come up ourselves. Sorry guys.”

“That’s fine. We can handle it,” said Oliver.

“Yeah, guns are kind of more out thing anyway,” Thea remarked with a smirk.

“Alright, well just give us a call if you need backup.”

“We will. Thanks for the heads up, guys,” Laurel said. They hung up and got to work on trying to locate their newly arrived meta. It was slower going without Felicity, but a police report about a shootout in the warehouse district proved helpful. Laurel, Oliver, and Thea all suited up with John remaining behind to man the comms. They were taking turns on it these days.

When they arrived, the police had set up a perimeter around the warehouse Piers had holed himself up in. They’d have to come in from above to get around it.

Thea shot a grappling arrow into the roof of a nearby building, and Oliver followed suit. He reached out an arm without even looking, and Laurel stepped into a quasi-embrace.

It was hard to ignore the little jump her heart did when his arm wrapped securely around her waist, but Laurel did her best as they rose together up to the roof; and again when they repeated the process to swing over to the warehouse Piers was in.

“Spartan, you there?” Laurel asked as she backed out of Oliver’s hold. Focusing on the mission was the best way to ground herself.

“ _ Yeah. You three should be right on top of him. I’d watch out for his powers, cause judging by the police report he’s definitely using them. _ ”

“Thanks for the update,” Oliver said. “Okay, I’m going to get this skylight open and grapple down. Should be able to catch him by surprise without too much trouble.”

“What about us?”

“You and Speedy will hang back.”

Thea frowned. “Why would we do that?”

“Because I’m worried about you, and I don’t like to seem weak in front of you two,” Oliver stated bluntly. Then he winced. “That was not how that was supposed to come out.”

“Probably the truth field,” Laurel muttered.

Beside her, Thea crossed her arms. “Well, since it has come out, can I say that the whole point of a team is to be strong  _ together? _ You always try to do this!”

“She’s got a point,” Laurel added before he could try to protest. “You say you’re grateful for our help one minute, but in the next fight you want to go it alone anyway. And I don’t know why you’d be worried about us seeing you in a vulnerable position.”

“Because I care about you!”

“And you think we don’t?”

“ _ How about everybody take a deep breath, _ ” John suggested over the comm. “ _ We need to be focused on catching Piers. _ ”

It was only then that Laurel thought they all realized how tensed they’d gotten.

Oliver lowered his voice. “Flash and the others said this is exactly how Piers operates. He waits for somebody to blurt something to the rest of the group and get them fighting each other. We can’t fall into that trap. Trying this one-on-one is the option I want to go with.” Oliver frowned. “I meant—”

“We know what you meant.” Laurel shook her head. He’d no doubt wanted to convince them that this was the  _ best _ option objectively, not just the one he liked.

He got into a crouch and began working on the lock to the skylight. “Okay, well then can we just do this?” It was impossible not to miss the irritation in his voice. An Oliver forced to tell the truth was an unhappy Oliver indeed.

“Yeah, sure. Black Canary and I will wait out here since you think we’re so useless,” Thea grumbled as she started to stalk away.

“I don’t think you’re useless.”

“No, just that you’re fine on your own,” Laurel finished for him. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t love you.”

Her breath caught as her entire body froze. Horror swept over her as Oliver looked up sharply, eyes wide behind his mask. Thea had whirled around and was gaping.

“I didn’t mean to say that,” Laurel blurted. “I mean I — it was —  _ wasn’t _ —” Her teeth grit together trying to force the desperately needed lie past her lips.  _ Why, _ of all things, was it a truth field?

The sudden staccato of gunfire shattered through the skylight, only narrowly missing Oliver.

“ _ Focus, team! _ ” John commanded.

“Sure thing. Cover’s blown!” Thea had attached a grapple and jumped down through the opening, firing off an arrow. Laurel rushed to follow her lead, unable to remain on the roof with Oliver alone.

She’d ruined it. She’d ruined everything. Why had she said it? 

Well, she’d said it because a metahuman criminal had the ability to force the truth to spill out of people. As Piers staggered back from his dropped gun, one of Thea’s arrows in his arm, Laurel rushed him with her baton, delivering a pair of quick hits that had him dropping like a stone. She was left breathing harshly in the otherwise silence of the warehouse.

“Piers is down,” Thea said into the comm. Oliver stood only a few feet behind his sister, and it was impossible to make out his features in the lack of light. She had no idea what he was thinking.

Laurel turned and walked back to where the two grapple lines were still hanging down, taking hold of Thea’s and beginning to climb. It was much harder work than just hanging on while Oliver rode up, but she couldn’t even bare the idea of being that near to him in light of what he now knew.

Thea was up on the roof only a couple short minutes after her. “Green Arrow is securing Piers for the cops. We’ll head back to the bikes.” She placed a hand over her comm and continued in a softer voice, “Laurel, I’m so sorry.”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” she replied, eyes on the ground. Thea followed her back to the bikes and got on behind her.

“It’s gonna be okay.”

She wanted to believe that, but she couldn’t see how it would be. Laurel waited until Oliver came into view and then gunned the engine of her bike, turning them around and driving back towards the base. She shut off her comm for good measure on the chance that somebody was going to try and start a conversation that way.

John avoided her eyes when they got back, which Laurel did her best not to notice as she went straight back to change. If she was lucky, she’d finish that and be out of there before Oliver even parked.

She breezed past her friend once again and jabbed the button for the elevator, door tapping as she waited. It  _ dinged _ , and Laurel stepped forward as the doors opened—

“Oh!”

_ Right  _ into Oliver.

“Sorry!” Laurel backed up immediately, hands raised in the air.

“It’s okay. Laurel—”

She dodged around him. “I’m gonna be in the car. Somebody tell Thea?”

“Sure,” John answered.

“Thank you.” She entered the elevator and held the close door button, her stomach doing a weird flip as Oliver turned on his heel to watch her. His mouth was open with no sound coming out, and his eyes—

The doors closed. Laurel leaned back against the far wall and let her head thunk against it.

What had she done?

—-

The night was an uncomfortably quiet one. Thea hovered nearby as she heated up their microwave dinners, never quite saying anything but clearly wanting to. What was there to say, though? She was in love with a man who didn’t love her, and now they all knew it.

At least they hadn’t run into Piers until after Felicity left the team. Laurel couldn’t imagine the look of betrayal on her friend’s face.

She left early the next morning for the office thanks to her inability to really fall asleep that night, and she gratefully sank back into the familiar refuge that was work. Laurel didn’t know how long she’d been at it until there was a knock on her door frame.

She looked up, her typical greeting dying in her throat. Oliver stood there, watching her with sadness in his eyes.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” she echoed, not ready to try for anything more.

He closed the door, walked in, and placed a wrap on her desk. “You have breakfast?”

Laurel gave a slow shake of the head. She reached out and took one corner of the paper protecting the wrap between thumb and forefinger, dragging it closer to her.

Oliver sat down. “I’m sorry about last night.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“No, but it wasn’t right.” He studied his hands where they rested on his lap for a while. “I did some thinking last night, about all of it, and—”

“Ollie, please don’t.”

He glanced up, surprised.

Laurel drew in a shaky breath. “Whatever you’re gonna say, you wouldn’t be saying if last night hadn’t happened. I don’t want you to force yourself to say something or believe something just because you feel sorry for me.”

“I care about you, Laurel. That’s not something anyone would have to force me to say.”

“But I’m not the woman you love.”

Oliver hesitated. “I’m not sure if you’re not.”

She looked down for a moment. Then she stood up and came around the side of her desk. “What I said because of Piers, it didn’t surprise me. I’ve known it for years. I love you, Ollie — but I would never ask you to pretend for my sake. Even if you aren’t sure. Don’t say anything. Not now.”

Her pride couldn’t take it if he tried in this instant to convince her. He’d been ready to be married only months ago — he couldn’t know if he loved her anymore than he could know if he truly was over Felicity. And she refused to get her hopes up for uncertainty.

He stood as well. “I just want you to be happy.”

“I am happy. I have a team, my family, a job that I love, and a city to fight for.”

She wasn’t expecting him to move, but he did, and before she knew it he was hugging her tight. Laurel’s hands landed just below his shoulder blades. “Oliver?”

“Sorry. It’s just — I tell myself the same thing every day.”

Laurel stood there, a terrible mix of sadness and longing stirring deep in her gut, and she closed her eyes as she rested her cheek on his shoulder. “You’ll be okay.”

“So will you.” Eventually, his arms lowered, and they both slowly took their steps backward into thee own spaces. Laurel readjusted her blazer, and Oliver smoothed down his tie. He nodded once to the wrap. “Please eat.”

“Okay.” Laurel gave a small wave as he exited the office, and then returned to the chair behind her desk. With slow, noncommittal movements, she unwrapped the food and took a bite.

Crunchy tuna. Her favorite. She took the napkin he’d packed and dabbed at the corners of her eyes.

She really did wish sometimes that she didn’t love him. It would make everything so much easier.


End file.
